"So what are your new year's resolutions then?" I ask Short Tony over breakfast.

(nb he has popped round for breakfast, it is not that we have slept together the night before in an embarrassing 'things happen on new year's eve' type way thus confirming in a horrific fashion the subtext some enthusiastic academic might read into the relationship between Short Tony and I, JonnyB, a bit like Frodo and Sam or Pooh and Piglet can be perfectly good friends with no funny stuff so there no we didn't and there is evidence and proof of that fact.)

He pats his stomach mournfully. "It has to be this, really." Short Tony's waistline has been expanding so rapidly and uncontrollably that it has recently admitted Romania and Bulgaria and is currently in negotiations with Turkey.

I glance round the glasshouse, sympathetically.

"Yours?" he asks, helping himself to an extra sausage.

I think for a bit. There are a million things that I really should try to do in 2007, such as being a bit nicer to the LTLP, starting working again rather than just poncing about with the baby, changing the light bulb in the lounge, etc. But none of these seem to address the vague bigpictureness that hangs over me.

"Mine is probably 'don't.' I conclude. Just 'don't.'"

He nods. It will do.